Category Archives: How to Videos

In our previous video, Preparing to Make Your Wine, we have sterilized our equipment and identified all ingredients. We are now ready to start the first step. First some warm water is added to our fermenting bucket and the first ingredient, bentonite, is slowly stirred into the water until it is completely dissolved. Be sure to add the Bentonite slowly to avoid clumping. The mixture will have a muddy type appearance, but do not worry this is totally normal. You can now add the juice bag that came with your kit. Pry of the cap and carefully pour the juice into your bucket. Kits that have less concentrated juice will have a larger size juice bag and it is sometimes easier to complete this step while the juice bag remains in the kit’s box. After you have poured in all of the juice, some residual sediment will remain in the bag. Add a little bit of water to the bag to rinse this sediment into your bucket and stir everything for a couple of minutes.

The next step is to add water to bring your mixture up to the 6 gallon mark. During this time it will be particularly important to pay close attention to the temperature of the mixture. When completely filled it should be between 68 and 75 degrees F. This is what is required in order for fermentation to successfully begin, and it is most desirable to have it closer to that 75 degree mark. If your water is cold, you made need to warm some up in order to get to the proper temperature point. You can use spring water or purified water, or basically any water that tastes good will be ok to use, just avoid chlorinated water. Fruit wine kits will have an F-Pack, which is a sweetener that is added later in the process. If this is the case with your kit, top of your water level slightly below the 6-gallon mark to make room for the f-pack later on. Once again make sure your mixture is stirred well.

Some wine kits may have oak chips with them. If your wine kit has oak chips with it add them at this time by sprinkling them on the top and then mixing them into the juice to make sure they are saturated. Most of the chips will remain on the top for now. The final step is to add your yeast pack. Slowly sprinkle the yeast evenly across the top of the juice.

Secure the lid and attach the air lock. After fermentation starts add some sterilizing solution to your air lock which will create a barrier letting gasses out, but no outside air in. Your next step, and our next video will be transferring your wine to a carboy for the secondary fermentation process after the primary fermentation is complete in approximately 7 days.

You can make high quality wine using a wine ingredient kit and some basic wine making equipment. There are many kits to choose from and no matter what your wine preference is, there is a kit for you! Mark steps you through the basic preparation as you start the process of wine making. First, all of your equipment must be sterilized properly. Simply mix the EZ Clean, that comes with your kit, with water. This will be used as your sterilization mixture. Any contamination could ruin your batch, and you don’t want that to happen, so the sterilization step is a very important one.

Next it is time to identify all of the ingredients that are included with your kit. The sweeter fruit wine kits have an F-pack which provides the fruit flavoring during the clearing process. Also, some kits may have oak chips which you will use during the day one process of making your wine. See which ingredients you will need on day one, and which ingredients you can put aside for later steps in the wine making process.

Wine Making is fun, easy and the results are amazing, so let’s get started!

Your Homebrew has fermented and is racked off of the sediment. It is now time to bottle it. As always make sure you sanitize your equipment and bottles. If there is no sediment in the bottom of the bottles you can sanitize them in the dishwasher by placing them upside down on the top rack. Set the dishwasher for a sanitize rinse, heat dry and in place of dishwashing detergent, use a tablespoon of easy clean instead.

The priming sugar can be added to water and boiled into a mixture that can now be added to your brew. You now want to adequately stir the beer. Use whirlpool stirring to ensure that everything is evenly distributed or you could have some layering occur which could cause some bottles to carbonate more then others. Place the bottle filler wand inside the bottle until it presses against the bottom. There is a small valve that will open when it presses against the bottom of the bottle. When the level reaches the top of the bottle, lift the wand to stop the flow. When you remove the wand completely, the displacement of the wand will lower the level of your beer to the exact level inside the bottle. You can now cap your bottles. At this point place your beer in a warm area for 1 1/2 to 2 weeks so that it can carbonate. If you put it in the fridge right away it will not carbonate properly. If this is done the bottles can be removed and then placed in a warm area at which time carbonation will then occur.

Once you have brewed your beer you will want to cool it down as fast as possible. The reason is that creating this cold break will assist the beer in clearing properly. It also reduces the risk of contamination. The Wort Chiller is a great device that you can use to quickly cool down your brew. As always make sure everything is sterilized properly and place the wort chiller directly into your brew pot after the 60 minute boil. Cold water runs through the coils of the wort chiller removing heat from the brew. When you get the temperature down to 70 degrees Fahrenheit you are ready to transfer into the fermenting bucket and add your yeast.

After you distribute the yeast packet onto the surface of your liquid you can anticipate fermentation to begin in approximately one day. Occasionally it could take as much as 48 hrs. You will know it’s fermenting once the water in the air lock is perculating or peculating at a very constant rate. In the event that the top isn’t sealed completely, fermentation may start however there won’t be any indicator in the airlock since the air pressure is leaking out through the less than properly sealed lid. It is alright to take off the lid and have a look. When fermentation is happening you will observe the yeast foaming together with the liquid along side outsides of the fermenting container. this situation secure the cover making certain it’s now completely sealed. Whenever fermentation doesn’t begin you might need to add more yeast.

One of the key steps when beer brewing is making sure your equipment is properly sterilized. Any bacteria that is introduced can possibly ruin your batch of homebrew. This video shows how the fermenting bucket is sterilized using a product called Easy Clean. Easy Clean is a powder mixed with water, which produces a peroxide type solution that is a safe and effective way to sterilize your homebrew equipment. This is a no rinse cleaner, but you must make sure your equipment is drained properly.

Mark Garber owner of Lancaster Homebrew explains in this video how to rack beer. Racking beer is the process of siphoning your beer off of the sediment after it has fermented. You need a way to take the beer and leave the sediment in preparation for the bottling process. As with all steps of beer brewing, sanitation is of key importance. Mark reviews the sanitation process before presenting two methods that you can use to start the siphon when you are racking beer.